Converting garbage into energy may seem like a brilliant solution to overflowing landfills and a growing demand for alternative fuels, but unfortunately, the futuristic-sounding method may not be as green as you might hope.  While there are plenty of projects that employ gasification, the process of heating trash to extremely high temperatures to create the fuel syngas, they all seem to have some sort of hitch that detracts from their potential benefit.  Hopefully the experiments continue though, because we certainly have plenty of trash piling up and could really use more clean energy alternatives to fossil fuels.

If movies are any indication of what the future will look like, I’m hoping that Doc Brown is on to something with his trash powered Delorean in Back to the Future:

In some cases toxic gases and contaminated waste water created during the process have closed down some gasification projects, although some people argue that those health and environmental risks can be minimized further.  Also, gasification may not be the greatest way to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, even when compared to well-run landfills that trap those gases.  Many people are also concerned that the process may detract from recycling and waste-reduction efforts, which in the long run seem to be more environmentally-sound approaches to our waste problem.  There’s got to be a happy medium though, don’t you think?  As Bradford Plumer suggests in the New Republic, maybe we could gasify what is left over after we recycle what we can.